Society should deal with accessibility issues rather than get rid of disabled people through selective abortion, according to a disability NGO that promotes inclusion through sports and arts.
Disabled people are able to enjoy life to its full potential
The NGO Breaking Limits was reacting to comments made by John Zammit of Alleanza Liberali who proposed the decriminalisation of abortion in cases of rape or foetuses with impairment.
“Allowing the abortion of a foetus on the grounds of impairment implies that the lives lived by disabled people are not to be considered worthwhile,” RhodaGarland, from Breaking Limits said, expressing “shock”.
Improvement in healthcare and medical sciences has seen disabled people living “very fulfilled lives”.
“It is society that believes these lives are not worth living, and certainly not the disabled people who have gone through the actual experience. Disabled people are able to attend mainstream schools, find employment and socialise with disabled and nondisabled people, enjoying life to its full potential,” Ms Garland added.
The NGO admitted that there are issues such as accessibility that make it harder for the full inclusion of disabled people.
“But surely it is better for society to deal with accessibility issues rather than decide it is too difficult and that it would be better to eradicate disabled people from the island over time through selective abortion.”
Ms Garland noted that many nondisabled people are unable to conceptualise a life with a disability, and therefore assume it must be unimaginably terrible. This flaws their decision on whether a potential disabled quality of life is acceptable.
Quality of life is not something that can be decided purely on the basis of impairment, as the individual’s personality and their family will also form a major part of the way they live their lives and the potential they have, she added.
When contacted, Mr Zammit clarified that Alleanza Liberali agrees with the British law and a legally induced abortion must be performed if, among others, there is a substantial risk that the newborn “would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.”
He said Alleanza Liberali reiterated this proposal whenever he was invited to speak about the party’s proposals, and he could not elaborate further because he was no doctor.
Vicky Lynne Gauci, who watched the TVM programme TVHemm last week where Mr Zammit referred to this proposal, expressed relief that her son, who has spina bifida, was not in the room at the time.
At the age of 11 he knows what is going on and it would have been very difficult to explain the comment to him, she said.
When her son Rocco was born, doctors told Ms Gauci that he would never walk.
But Rocco started walking when he was four and, despite using a wheelchair, he does hip hop dancing and plays with his four older siblings.
Ms Gauci believes doctors inform parents about the worse possible scenario and this could scare women into having an unnecessary abortion.